


The Three Children Loki Raised and the One He Didn't

by Renata Lord (snowlight)



Category: Marvel, Norse Mythology, Thor (2011)
Genre: Adoption, Brothers, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowlight/pseuds/Renata%20Lord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for norsekink meme prompt: Let's see Loki take time out of his busy schedule of evil plots and fighting superheroes to do some actual parenting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Three Children Loki Raised and the One He Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to be crack but somehow got a little angsty towards the end. Sorry about that.

**1\. Jormungandr**

Out of all of Loki's children, Jormungandr was the dreamer.

"I wanna go to Hogwarts!" at the age of thirteen, he said at least once every other day. "I hate this school! It's so _boring_!"

Loki regretted ever telling his second son that a magical letter had came for him on his eleventh birthday, but they were beyond that now. If it wasn't Hogwarts, Jormungandr would have found some other escape to daydream about. (Though granted, at least he wouldn't go on and on about how he was going to be "the best Slytherin ever" if he had his heart set on, say, Eton.)

The real problem was that Jormungandr thought his father was boring. One would think taking-over-the-nine-realms, Ragnarok-scheming would at least make Loki look cool to his kids, but to Jormungandr and his classmates this was the most common day job _ever_. Sometimes Loki even wore ties to work. _Ties_!

Loki was at his famous wit's end when the complaints suddenly stopped. Jormungandr actually started looking forward to school each morning and was unaccountably happy when he came back. He started humming songs. Worse, he started _writing_ songs. 

Loki became, well, understandably alarmed. 

With a little parental snooping around, he found out the source of this terrifying happiness. It was another perfectly lovely snake-child whom Jormungandr had met at school, the youngest daughter of Quetzalcoatl.

Loki had about thirty seconds of peace of mind with this knowledge, then he realized that it was time to give Jormungandr the Talk.

*

**2\. Fenrir**

Fenrir was the middle child, and the effect showed.

He didn't like to talk much. Wasn't really all that good at it. None of Loki's sons was any good at talking their way out of trouble like Loki could, but with Fenrir it was simply appalling. When Fenrir got angry or stressed, Fenrir would just _bite_.

And Fenrir always meant business when he bit.

Thus for Loki, taking the howling wolf-child to the dentist's office often proved to be far more challenging than facing down Thor or Tony Stark in a skirmish--until one Friday afternoon Hela, oh Yggdasil bless her cunning little heart, solved this particular problem for her weary father once and for all.

"No, Fen-Fen! Do NOT bite Dr. Santos! I TOLD YOU, DENTISTS HAVE COOTIES!"

*

**3\. Hela**

Hela was the heartbreaker.

She was, by and large, well-behaved. Loki knew that didn't mean she didn't get into trouble. It simply meant that she could get herself out of the said trouble before it could get to her. As a whole, he very much approved--one of his children actually turned out to take after him. That was something, at least.

Thus Loki was singularly unconcerned when his daughter flowered into adolescence. He knew Hela didn't need his protection from the usual potential predators. If anything, she was the predator and them the prey. Loki considered Hela's hunt to be an exercise in deception, a preamble to her eventual destiny.

Yet it unsettled him to see his daughter using the same power of manipulation on her brothers. Jormungandr was prone to retreating into his own little world, but Fenrir adored his sister with an unquestioning devotion. If Hela wished he would follow her around like a dumb cur, ever-ready to leap at her command.

This in itself was not a problem, because Hela clearly had enough intelligence to do the thinking for both of them and then some. However, at times Loki couldn't help but suspect that Hela was merely _using_ Fenrir to her own ends, like he was a pawn in her hands to be played. 

"He's your brother, you know," he once said to her. "He looks out for you. You should do the same for him."

Memory played a trick on him in that moment, when those words left his lips. 

He remembered Asgard. He remembered Frigga.

He remembered Thor.

*

**0\. Sleipnir**

Sleipnir was the firstborn, far older than the rest of Loki's children.

Which meant that Loki had him young. Had him too young, really, and had no idea what to do with him. When Odin and Frigga stepped in and offered to raise the child in his stead, Loki didn't spend much time over thinking about it before saying yes.

It wasn't a mistake, but many years and a brood of children later, when he wasn't busy plotting the downfall of the good guys, the Liesmith did begin to wonder if things could have turned out differently with Sleipnir. The conclusion was no.

As it was, he could only comment to Frigga on how Sleipnir gained weight since the last time they saw each other--had Frigga been feeding the child sweets again? (Yet Sleipnir wasn't a child anymore, but a creature of magnificent beauty like his father. He had grown up without Loki noticing it, because Loki didn't think to look.)

"Of course I have," Frigga gave him a small smile. "It's my sacred duty to spoil my darling grandchild."

She said "grandchild" instead of "son”, and for that Loki was grateful.

He leaned down and she allowed him to kiss her hand. Between a mother and her son, sometimes, nothing needed to be said.

*

Finis


End file.
